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A long, hard-fought presidential nominating race doesn’t hurt Republicans by leaving them divided. They’ll unite against President Obama. No, it hurts with voters in the middle.

First there’s this obsession about whether President Obama is “real” Christian. Franklin Graham expressed his doubts, once again showing he’s not half the man his father is. And Rick Santorum can’t help but sound like an American Ayatollah.

Every voter who agrees with Santorum is already going to vote Republican. But, just like when Pat Buchanan dragged the party into “culture wars” in 1992, a lot of voters don’t like political-religious wars.

As Alex Castellanos noted, voters also wonder about the Republican obsession with birth control and sex.

Then there are voters who ask: Why are they talking about this stuff when I’m worried about the economy?

President Trump said over and over that his tax cut is the biggest in history but, then, the press reported the Treasury Department had ranked every tax cut (as a percentage of GDP) since 1940. Was Trump first? No. Was…

At times like this I consult my friend Boweaver. Now 90-something, he’s seen it all. He grew up in the Depression, enlisted in World War II and would be happy if FDR had lived forever and stayed President. His counsel…

Michael Wolff wrote Trump was crazy and dumb and Trump fired back on Twitter that he was a smart, stable genius but the master of the put-down (who once immolated Lindsey Graham by calling him a dumb, crazy, nut-job in…

The ‘Tweet of the Year’ award doesn’t go to Trump or a Hollywood liberal but to Mike Huckabee who, after watching The Darkest Hour, tweeted ‘in Donald Trump we have found our Churchill.’ The Trumpsters set Twitter on fire with…

One comment on “'Real' Christians”

For those interested in the actual truth, rather than Gary’s typically twisted misrepresentation of it, here’s what Santorum REALLY said:

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute,” he told ‘This Week’ host George Stephanopoulos. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country … to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up.”

Notice that it’s not “hearing about the separation of church and state” that makes Santorum want to throw up, as Gary alledged. It’s the idea “that people of faith have no role in the public square” that he finds sickening. And what American (apart from Gary) wouldn’t recoil at the idea that people with religious convictions should be banned from participation in our democracy? The article goes on:

However, at a campaign event on the eve of the Michigan primary, the former Pennsylvania senator described his vision for the role of religion in public life.

“I’m for separation of church and state,” he said on Monday. “The state has no business telling the church what to do.”

Does any American, other than perhaps Gary, believe that the state DOES have the right to “tell the church what to do?”

The article concludes: During the interview Sunday, Santorum also criticized fellow Catholic John F. Kennedy, who said in a 1960 speech that “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

Santorum said last October that he “almost threw up,” when he first read the speech and that Kennedy had thrown “his faith under the bus.”

So Santorum’s original quip about ‘throwing up’ was not, as Gary alledges, from “hearing about the separation of church and state” but rather a reaction to Kennedy’s own personal stance on that issue. There is a huge difference. For example, I’m disgusted by President Obama’s take on the Second Amendment, but that certainly doesn’t mean I’m disgusted with the Second Amendment.

As I’ve written here before, I don’t like Rick Santorum’s (mis-)use of religion to garner votes, but I like even less Gary’s prevarications about Santorum’s positions. It’s one thing to disagree with a candidate’s positions; it’s quite another to deliberately mislead people about them. Rick Santorum clearly believes that people of faith have a role to play in the political process and was very clear in stating so. He rejects as totally un-American the idea that religious beliefs should have no impact on the voters’ or the candidates’ views on the issues of the day (and he’s right about that). Gary’s attempts to paint those solidly mainstream views as something other than what they are, are disgusting.